Winchester has a new friend. Charley is his name. He’s a Great Dane.
This makes Winchester very happy.
Charley loves to run and play. He plays differently than the greyhounds. Winchester doesn’t know what to think of this, but he still tries to get Charley to play. Charley has his own ideas of course.
So Winchester dances. And leaps.
And stamps his feet.
“Should I bring it?”
Bring it!
Cold. Wet. Rainy. Gray.
On the bright-side the basement is dry. That can’t be said for most of my neighbors. Or those along the Missouri river here in ND. Flooding. Sandbagging. Stress.
I don’t know how long it has been raining – just that it seems like we’ve had more rain this year than ever. If memory serves, we’ve had three nice days in all of May. I long for 70+ degree weather. I had to turn the furnace on last night.
And no Greyhound Gathering in Kanab, Utah. And no Art Show at Dewey Beach, Delaware this year either. I sit with no set events this year. No finalized engagements. The calendar is wide open with not a deadline in sight. I’m not sure I like this.
But my memory box goal for this month has been met. The boxes are drying and should be ready soon (rain/humidity is slowing the process down… slow drying is a good thing… but it takes forever…) There are also smaller smoke fired greyhound and saluki sculptures ready to be fired. In about a week things might shape up around here. The kilns will be firing, at last. I’m excited for the results. I’m really liking this batch of boxes and small sculptures.
The hounds and I have been squeezing trips to the dog park in between rain storms. I’m not crazy about them running on wet grass, but there has been little choice, of late. They need exercise and while the leash walking does fulfill some of that, it isn’t enough. The dog park ground is squishy and saturated like a sponge that needs to be wrung out. The hounds don’t seem to mind it or the baths when they get home.
Back to work. May has been a productive month. Memory boxes started. Small sculptures started. Shipped a larger piece (cross your fingers UPS will be kind in shipment). Have two other larger works possibly sold. Am *this* close to completing a $36,000 grant at the library job. It’s all good.
The temperature was near 70 degrees Fahrenheit. And the weatherman was warning of an upcoming blizzard. Such is spring in North Dakota. Turns out, this time, he was correct.
Winchester woke me this morning around 4AM. The wind was howling. He wanted me to be awake to hear it, I’m sure. The wind sounded like a train, but just a bit of snow. Wet and heavy. Then more snow… and wind. Ugh. Blizzard.
Just a few days ago, spring was here. The dogs and I have been visiting the dog park more often. We are all out of shape. We all love the sun. To be outdoors again.
Yes, every couple of days it snows. Then green grass and sunshine again. Just this time, the wind came.
This snow knocked down many (14?) of the very, very few trees that are in Bowman. We are short grass prairie. Every tree here has been planted. They don’t make it on their own.
I know there is green grass under the snow. The snow will be gone tomorrow or the next and the warmer temperatures will return. Such is spring in North Dakota.
So if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all, right? I’m going to attribute my lack of blogging to something along that sort. But mostly being super busy with library stuff, not making much work in the studio thanks to various reasons, and generally blanking on anything good to write about. It’s all okay. Just makes for a dead blog… Let’s get back in the swing of things.
Earlier this week, Mother Nature decided to dump roughly 14 inches of snow on Southwestern North Dakota. I’m like everyone else around here very tired of winter. But the snow was good snowman making snow. When I sat down on the couch to watch Glee I began to think about this awesome snow. Like the best snowman snow we’ve had all winter…
I had to make a big snow Greyhound.
We made many, many snow sculptures in this front yard through the years. My Dad and brother, and sometimes the neighborhood kids, built snow people, snow castles big enough to walk around in and dragons of all shapes and size. We got pictures of our results in the local paper fairly often.
So when the newspaper editor showed up in my front yard with a camera in hand, I wasn’t surprised. It’s a small town. There isn’t much for news. As he was snapping photos of the gigantic Greyhound I’d built, he asked how I decided to make a snow dog.
“When I was a kid we made snow men and other things. I was thinking of those snow men and how all I wanted, back then, was one of those plastic brick shaped snow cutter things to make igloo blocks, you know what I mean?”
“No” he says with a southern accent.
So I continued, “You know… they advertised in the backs of magazines… the block cutter was red with a handle on top.”
“No” he says with southern accent.
“They were red…”
Then it occurs to me. Southern Accent. Southern US…. has…. no… snow.
Really, my brain was as frozen as my hands. Really.
Duh….
If you’ve been counting, which I assure you every North Dakotan has, this is Too Much Winter #3. I realize that for the rest of the US, North Dakota means Cold and Snowy. But Bowman is located in the “Banana Belt” of North Dakota. That usually means that we’re warmer and have better weather than the rest of the state. Usually.
Really, I can stand the cold and snow. I can put up with the layers. The ice layer on my windshield. The ice layer on the streets. The layers of clothing required for any outdoor (and several indoor) activities.
Wish my dogs had a place to run… The snow is too deep and too hard at the dog park. Walks are possible, but the roads are slick and nobody around here shovels sidewalks. Guess we’ll have to check out the indoor horse arena again. Because they are bored, bored, bored.
As am I. In a way. Just too much same-ness. And so I made a sculpture that illustrates (I hope) how I feel about the winter… The dull, underwhelming sameness of winter.
Greyhound in Winter Trooper/Bomber hat. The challenge of fur. I wanted to capture my feelings about winter – I think I was successful and am pleased with the result.
Now onto firing and finishing. I hope to have that done by the time Spring rolls around here.
Winter has descended on North Dakota. Most of October and most of November were beautiful, fall-filled. The more fall, the less winter. Hurray!
Sunday morning was frosty as ever. The Greyhounds are getting used to the cold again and Annie was happy to be outside as I unloaded the smoke firing cans. The air is crisp and cold. I was happy to get this photo of her sniffing the slight breeze.
Everything was covered with frost and the sky was foggy and cold… till the sun came out. Sunday was a beautiful winter day.
Winchester, on the other hand, is happy to stay inside. Sage had the choice sunbeam next to the glass door, but Winchester found an able substitute.
When Sage did come outside, he played with Annie till it was ready to go in. He peeked through the deck railing as I unloaded the smoke cans.
Here’s one of the smoke-fired small sculptures from this weekend’s firing. More photos on Facebook.
Spring hits around here and things get busy in a hurry. Zero to sixty in seconds. Everybody in town is walking or raking or something outside. Outside! Where the light is!
Long ND winter – which I know to the rest of the world seems odd – “Aren’t all North Dakota winters long?”
Well, yes. But not usually this long.
Anyway, enough about the winter. Sheesh. Yuck. Phooey.
Wow did the memory boxes disappear from my etsy store.
I’m overwhelmed by your support. Totally awesome. Makes me want to hole up in the studio and make more goodies.
That will happen tomorrow. Today I’m going to have to work on the to-do list from another angle. More boxes to be shipped, the Spoo needs his spring haircut, and I must de-mud this house if it is going to be livable again. I know there is a sink in the kitchen somewhere…
The snow on the driveway is very near to 100% melted off. It’s a north facing driveway so the house shields the sun’s rays for nearly all but the foot of it. If a north facing driveway in a northern climate is dry, it’s a solid indication that spring is around the corner.
I can’t wait.
Two long winters in a row. If we get number three, I’m breaking my rule and buying a snow blower.
On the library front – the computers are back from the repair shop. This includes the server that holds Everything Important In Our Library. We’re going to have to replace this computer. I know nothing about servers but have a list of requirements from the Library Software gods. And the new computer lab is shaping up nicely. Whew.
Got the website shaping up. Sorry for these blog posts about past work. There must be a way to post without posting… It’s in the wordpress settings somewhere, right?
Etsy store restock on Sunday. Inventory today.
Speaking of inventory… a video of unloading the glaze kiln.
Or something. Cause it’s coming down whether we want it or not. But snow in March isn’t the same as snow in January – March snow doesn’t stick around long.
Dogs are having fun playing in it.
When we last left this corner of the fence it had a gigantic snowbank behind it. Thanks to a week with some, but not enough, melting, the snowbank is still there. Turns out, Annie, Sage and Winchester aren’t the only dogs in the neighborhood with a snowbank.
Brody has a snowbank too. Right across the alley.
“Brody, man, you have a snowbank too?”
“Woof!”
“Guys, come over here and look at Brody’s snowbank”
“Woof, woooooooo!”
“That rocks. Do it again!”
“Those skinny hairless dogs are so easily amused…”
I need a vacation. Some place warm.
And by “warm” I mean any place over 40 degrees Farenheit.
I remember what green looks like – and all this white will make things green eventually – but I need something else besides the sea of whiteness. “Soon it will be March… And March means spring,” I tell myself. Then I remember that last year in June, it snowed.
Tough country. Hard to live here…. sometimes.
But it is also very, very easy. No traffic to speak of. No real crime either. No red tape. People here are pretty good folks who look out for each other. Lots of time to get work done. And no distractions.
Here in lies the rub – no distractions. Nothing to rub up against to fill one’s head with newness. You’re not going to see anything NEW here in the winter. And nothing different. Nothing unusual. Nothing that challenges the way one thinks. And one can’t really do anything either – hiking? skiing? Too cold. Too icy and cold to walk the hounds.
Just white. Lots of white.
I need a vacation.get.away.
, Just Kids
, Steve Jobs
, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood
and The Help Deluxe Edition
.
